The Budget Control Act kept the United States in business last August by allowing Congress to raise the debt ceiling and put off details on specific federal budget cuts until November. When the "super committee" blew that deadline for agreeing to $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, it set the stage for harsh across-the-board cuts to go into effect in January 2013.

The Department of Defense is on the hook for about $492 billion, or half of the mandatory cuts that will go into effect over the next decade through the end 2021 if President Obama and Congress do not reach a deal before January 3, 2013.

The Pentagon budget was already targeted for $487 billion in cuts through 2021 as a result of last summer's debt-ceiling negotiations, and it would take a 9% hit next year if there is no agreement to stop the automatic cuts.

Uncertainty over how much money the boys in the Pentagon will have to spend on weaponry and sundries has been a huge depressant on shares of defense contracting firms. Year-to-date, the group has trailed the S&P 500 and the SPY ETF that tracks it.

The defense downdraft has resulted in some meaty dividend yields from the arms merchants. Lockheed Martin, developer of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, is now priced to pay a plump 4.8%. Intelligence specialist SAIC yields 4.6%, missile maker Raytheon kicks out 4% and ManTech International has a full-figured 3.8% dividend yield. Boeing throws off 2.5%.

Check out the Market Blaster video at the top of this column for more dividend stock ideas, including big telecommunications stocks like AT&T and Verizon, as well as foreign phone companies like France Telecom. International oil stocks are also juicy with yield: the U.K.'s BP and Italy's Eni S.p.A. both yield north of 5%, but both the British pound and the euro have been tumbling against the dollar of late and that's going to drag on the returns you get in those stocks if the buck stays strong.

In big drug stocks, too, you get bribed with extra fat yields for leaving U.S. borders. Britain's AstraZeneca spits out 9.5%, about double the yield you get from Pfizer and Merck.